


sea change

by bertee



Category: The Odyssey - Homer
Genre: F/M, Murder, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-04
Updated: 2011-04-04
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:27:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bertee/pseuds/bertee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Odysseus did die out on the wine-dark sea. That doesn't stop him from coming back to Ithaka.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sea change

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the above prompt at [sharp_teeth](http://sharp-teeth.livejournal.com/). Posted [here](http://bertee.livejournal.com/91771.html) on LJ.

Antinous goes first.

Up in her chamber beside the banquet hall, Penelope hears the son of Eupeithes' shouts turn to screams. She remembers him courting her, boasting of his family and his wealth in a voice deep as the river, but she still recognizes his voice as it gets higher and higher in terror before it's crushed out by the weight of death.

A thread snaps as she keeps weaving.

She hears Eurymachus speak next, full of unearned outrage and blazing with Antinous' typical fire. He would come to her in the late afternoon, bright-eyed and fresh from the hunt, bringing her spoils and silky promises of more if she returned the favour. His arms were always stained with blood, tiny, careless drops left on his bronze skin, and Penelope wonders how much blood is covering the floor when she hears the wet thrust of a weapon being driven through his lungs.

Another thread snaps.

The shouts become indistinguishable in seconds. The men who had been falling over each other for her hand are now just falling. Penelope closes her eyes and listens to the splash of blood, the tear of flesh, and the crunch of bone as the men of Ithaca -- Agelaus, Eurynomus, Amphimedon, Demoptolemus, Pisander, Polybus -- flee down to Hades like goats herded to their nightly pen.

The tapestry is frayed and worthless under her hands, a house half-built and already falling apart.

In the banquet hall, Ctesippus bellows in anger, one of the only voices left in a room full of bodies. The anger is nothing new; Penelope remembers his rage at the discovery of her trick and the feel of his hand, huge and calloused, gripping her wrist before propriety was forced upon him by the others. She rubs at the phantom bruises and feels nothing when she hears Ctesippus' skull being crushed.

Silence falls. Penelope breathes out slowly and waits.

The voice of Leiodes, the suitors' ever-obedient priest, drifts up from the banquet hall, "Please! Have mercy, Lord Odysseus!"

Penelope freezes. She's imagined this moment for years, imagined her husband arriving as a conquering hero and reclaiming his rightful place on the throne, but as Leoides' head rolls heavily across the ground, she wonders what exactly has returned from Troy.

Phemius and Medon are next, good men both of them. Penelope stares at her completed tapestry on the wall and watches the way the corners darken with a strange dampness as the sounds of slaughter fill the house once again.

She goes to the window when she sees movement outside. The man -- _her husband_ \-- is in the courtyard, a black-cloaked stranger watched with fearful interest by Telemachus, Eumaeus, Euryclea and the bound traitor, Melanthius.

The suitors' mistresses are there too, bloodstained and sobbing, but to Penelope's ears, their cries turn into the delighted shrieks of the Erinyes as the man strings them up one by one. He doesn't spare them a second glare as they convulse and suffocate, twitching like dying rabbits until their bodies go still, twelve corpses swaying in the breeze.

Beside her, the tapestry grows darker and darker as it is soaked through with water, and Penelope starts to pray.

Down in the courtyard, her husband pulls out a man's intestines with his bare hands.

Melanthius screams, high and dreadful, but Penelope doesn't look away. It's been decades since she's seen her husband or felt his touch against her skin and so she fixes her eyes on his hands -- _pale beneath the blood, like she's looking at them through water_ \-- and watches him sever Melanthius' limbs at the wrists and ankles. Her husband stands over him like the shadow of Death itself, black-cloaked and implacable, and Penelope sees him use those pale, skilful hands to slice off Melanthius' ears and nose and carve out his insides like a sacrifice.

He doesn't stop to wipe off the blood before he snaps Euryclea's neck.

On the wall, the tapestry starts to drip with water while Penelope tries to calm her racing heart. Somehow she thought he would stop, that he would take his vengeance and be sated, but as he drops Euryclea's body to the ground and advances on Eumaeus, she realises her thoughts were foolish.

The house is heavy with death and blood, and the whole island seems to have fallen silent at the hands of whatever has returned from Troy in the guise of her husband. Taking a breath, Penelope feels her heart return to its steady beat as she watches the man drive his thumbs into Eumaeus' eyes.

Penelope's a prudent woman. She knows she can't fight fate.

Eumaeus drops, howling, and Penelope listens to the drip, drip, drip of water from the tapestry as the man takes a club and reduces Eumaeus' head to a bloody smear at the end of his fallen body.

She almost shouts a warning when she sees Telemachus charge at the man who used to be his father, sword raised and teeth bared, but chooses to stay quiet. War is men's business, after all.

The sword goes through his side, clear and true, but Telemachus stumbles back in shock when the only thing that spills out of him is water. "What-"

The man rips his throat out before he can finish and Penelope watches, numb and wide-eyed, as her son drops to the ground, gasping out his life into the dust. The man steps over his body as though Telemachus is no more than a puddle on the ground and Penelope steels herself when she sees him come back inside the house.

Water pours down the wall, rolling off the tapestry she wove and creeping outwards across the floor as the smell of saltwater fills the room. The noise of the sea grows louder and louder, roaring through Penelope's mind as the man's footsteps get closer and closer, and her chest feels tight when she tries to breathe, like she's underwater again in the lake she used to play in as a child.

The door crashes open like a wave, making the floor shake as though the Earth-quaker himself were present, and Penelope's husband enters.

His footsteps cause no ripples in the water as he walks towards her but Penelope feels something cold start to trickle down her spine.

She keeps her eyes on her husband, on the faceless shadow which came back in her husband's place from Troy, and fights to breathe past the tightness in her chest and the ghostly tang of brine that clogs her throat. The man stops in front of her, his heavy cloak hiding everything but the pale, pale skin of his hands, and Penelope tastes saltwater when she summons up the courage to speak.

"A-are the gods angry?" she asks, and despite the fear filling her heart, she hates that she stammers. "Is this our punishment?"

The man cups her cheeks with gore-stained hands and when he leans in close, all Penelope sees under the hood is teeth.

"No," Odysseus says, his voice as calm as the water beneath his feet. "This is our reward."


End file.
